Matt Gurney: If you don't want to pledge allegiance to the Queen, don't move to a Commonwealth country

If you don't like the Queen's oath, don't go to a Commonwealth country

A group of concerned permanent residents are taking Canada’s citizenship oath to court. The three individuals, long-time residents of Canada but, importantly, not citizens, are arguing that they’d love to become Canadians, but can’t. The reason for their refusal or inability — our citizenship oath still involves pledging allegiance to “Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.” On religious and political grounds, the three residents are unable to do this, and therefore posit that the oath is effectively denying them the benefits of Canadian citizenship.

Too bad. If you don’t want to pledge allegiance to the Queen, here’s a thought — don’t move to one of her Commonwealth realms.

Forcing would-be Canadians to pledge allegiance to the Queen before they can become citizens is discriminatory and a violation of their constitutional rights, three permanent residents are set to argue in court on Friday.

All maintain they oppose the oath on religious or conscientious grounds, saying pledging allegiance to Canada should be sufficient.

The Citizenship Act requires applicants for citizenship to swear or affirm they will be “faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.”

Despite plenty of reasonable arguments that Canada should cut the cord and become a republic with a Canadian head of state residing in Canada, many of us remain fond of the monarchy. Polling done last year gave those in favour of remaining a constitutional monarchy a significant edge over those preferring abolition, 46-36, with neither side claiming a majority of support. At the very least, it’s clear that there’s no overwhelming grassroots movement clamoring to thank the monarchy for their service before sending them on their merry way.

That’s not surprising. If I can project my own perspective onto the country at large, I suspect that many Canadians may agree that our ties to the monarchy are a bit quirky, but that the constitutional wrangling and self-identity navel gazing required to cut them simply isn’t worth the trouble. We like the Queen just fine, and admire the role the House of Windsor has played in British history. There’s even some genuine affection specifically for Elizabeth II mixed in with the overall warm, fuzzy feelings. But many Canadians are probably monarchists by default — maybe this isn’t how we’d do things if we were building a country from scratch, but it’s working, so let’s not break the country trying to fix it.

These lukewarm feelings aside, the monarchy is part of our heritage. It’s also an effectively harmless one, and one that can even be fun every so often when a world-famous royal swings through for a tour. It gives our young country a tie to something older and grander than anything we can claim ourselves, and it’s cheap at the price — a few million bucks a year to cover the costs of the governor-general and lieutenant governors (which we’d keep, and continue paying for, under a different name, anyway). Sure, the monarchy’s quirky, but it’s ours.

Well, “ours” in a manner of speaking, I suppose. Oursish.

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And it’s not like we pretend otherwise. We don’t operate a stealth monarchy here. Anyone who’s chosen to move to the country, and has put in the time to get ready for the citizenship tests, will have had plenty of opportunity to learn about our system of government and how it came about. If anyone decides this isn’t the kind of system they want to be a part of, they’re certainly welcome to remain here as permanent residents. But you don’t get to skip on the monarchy part when trying to sign up with a constitutional monarchy.

Fundamentally, the issue is this — no one, not even a permanent resident who has lived here as a productive member of our society, has a right to Canadian citizenship. Our citizenship is not a reward for good behaviour or a swell character. It is a commitment on behalf of those swearing their oath to be good Canadians, with all that that means.

Yes, it’s a bit bizarre for those who would prefer Canada to be a republic (as some of the plaintiffs do) to swear an oath to the Queen. There’s lots of oddities in our system. But those who favour electoral reform don’t get their own separate little proportional representation elections. They work through the system as it exists and seek to change it from within, or they abstain on grounds of conscience. Either option is fine.

The same should apply to our citizenship oaths. If you want Canada to be a republic in the future, take the oath and become a citizen of Canada as it is today, and work from within to achieve the change you want. If you’re not willing to make that tiny sacrifice, remain a permanent resident and call off your lawyers. Becoming a citizen of a new country is a tremendous responsibility. If you can’t sign up for all of it, we don’t need you.